Congo: Forest Tribes (Foundry Figures) - part 2 (of 2)

 Continuing on my showcase of the forest tribes for CONGO (studio tomahawk). If you are interested in the 'official' pictures of minis there is a handy pdf with cards of all the units here. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First up is the pygmy king (a leader required if you want a pygmy unit). He has a unit of spearmen, and archers.  I tried to use some consistent colours across the whole force as, to be honest, there is a lot of replication across the 4 armies (like everyone gets young warriors, archers, scouts, and porters). My forest tribes have blue, red, orange, turqoise.

 

 

 

 

 

The pgymies may be overpowered based on the game we played. The archers, conveniently, are 2 separate units but activate on a single card/token/thingum. Small units are SUPER brittle, but the extra mobility was pretty awesome. There is, functionally, some march blocking which allows you to slow down your opponent if you are close to them. 

 

 

 

 Speaking of small units, we have a group of 3 scouts. They have an ability to enter terrain and NOT trigger a dangerous terrain test (there's a d66 table which can include some wild animals showing up on the table). Once a piece of terrain is occupied, it won't generate a test when another unit enters (but if it gets unoccupied and then return, you need to test again)

 

 

 

 Bundukis are another fairly common unit (warriors with muskets). Muskets and rifles have similar ranges, and attack dice are more about the troop competence than weapon. The difference is that muskets inflict a 'stress' token on a unit taking fire....but then they need to reload on another fire action. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last unit to be shown is the archers. I should probably base everyone, but I'm undecided on what to use. I'll probably just wait to finish my 3rd army/force and then base everyone the same way. Though there are arguments for having slightly different basing for each force I suppose to create some additional visual elements that differentiate them (makes it harder to steal/share the units between forces though). 

 




 

Congo! Sultanate of Zanzibar (3) - 28mm wargames foundry

The final elements in the Sultanate column are the local african hirelings. No doubt these guys are cannon fodder for the more 'valuable' troops. Also, I expect these guys desert often as the groups pass into different tribal areas and get too far from home.

 East coast Africans were in a drier area so that the shields could be solid wood. The forest tribes tend to use wicker as jungles rot everything pretty fast.

We see some basic muskets, spear troops, and those poor poor porters.



Strangely for the Zanzibari's the white robes denoted a higher socio economic class, whereas for the Africans, having a piece of colored cloth to cover your junk was an aspiration.

I could have 'dirtied' up the loin clothes, but I felt it's more visually pleasing to have crisp colors on the wargaming table.

Congo! Sultanate of Zanzibar (2) - 28mm wargames foundry

Following in the column of the Zanzibari sultanate we find some hirelings. The Baluchis (as per wargame foundry) were a somewhat hereditary warrior caste. They could come from Africa but Arabs and Indians were common as well. These guys struck me as fairly Indian in flavour, although the colouration of robes followed the zanibar theme (yellows and whites).



Once again there was some challenge making visually cohesive units. I don't think these guys suceeded, though luckily the sculpts are fairly unifying (swords/shields and extra long muskets) and the unit sufficiently different from some of the other units.

The Ruga Ruga were bandit mercenaries. They smoked drugs, wore 'fancy' clothes and acted tough. I imagine their direct spiritual successors are fairly prevalent in bush war africa of the modern era.

These guys were pretty fun to paint, and despite having individualized fashion sense, I think the unit is obvious that it belongs together.  It did take a longer time to paint for all the extra colours and the hemming and hawing about how to paint them.

Congo! Sultanate of Zanzibar (1) - 28mm wargames foundry

Leadership Team

One of our local gamers mentioned collecting a force for Congo. In one of those strange series of events, I ended up spotting a wicked deal for a copious amount of lead on TMP, and then needed to buff up an order to get free shipping so ended up ordering the rules. Neither the other local gamer or myself have made much progress past that. No longer! The Sultanate has stolen a march and woe be those fools who stand against them!

Trained Troops

 The figures are 28mm wargames foundry darkest africa range. They have a lot of character. I ended up with way too many and fobbed off the lot of africans with looted european gear (and carrying heads etc) to a buddy to return a gift of ancients. Fun stuff hiding there.

Zanzibaris

The "trained troops" have a better looking rifle; A repeater I suspect. The zanzibari's have slightly shoddier weaponry. Given the zanibari national dress was lots of white gowns it was a bit tricky to add colour and maintain 'unit' groupings. I hazard that I have succeeded.

My one clanger is the eyes are probably a bit too white, though it's less noticeable in person, on the table, at 3 feet.